Aspen took Nepthys’s place as they crossed over the final bridge, but the last stretch to the exit was thankfully free of monsters.

  Nepthys sighed heavily when she came to that realisation. “Damn it, so close to getting through it all intact.”

  “At least you came out of it mostly intact,” Jake said, making sure to not glance down at the uneven part of her leg.

  “It could have been worse,” she said, agreeing with him. “I’ve about wiped out all my Wyrd as well, though.”

  “Wait, how?” Jake asked with a frown. He’d seen that her shield was struggling against the lava, but he hadn’t realised it was so bad.

  “I’d used a good amount blocking the ambushes, but it turns out that my shield blocks harmful amounts of heat,” Nepthys said with a strained smile. “Without that, I’m not sure what state I’d have been in, so I’m glad. Still, between blocking all that heat and holding me up, my shield drained me dry.”

  “Well, let’s take a few minutes to rest,” Jake said, wishing that the Dungeon wasn’t so damn hot. Nepthys needed a good break to recover, but they only had so much water with them.

  “Hey, Jake,” Alan called out as Nepthys perched on the edge of a rock and took a deep sip from her canteen. “I found the Challenge!”

  They all perked up at that announcement and hurried over to the exit, where Alan was waiting by a door of shaped rock that was covered in elaborate designs.

  Most of the designs were ornamental, but the ones in the centre were important, and Jake studied them carefully for a few moments.

  “It looks like some sort of combat Challenge, what do you think?” Jake asked, stepping aside to let someone else move closer.

  “I agree, individual fights, though,” Gargan said, gesturing to one of the images carved into the rock.

  Jake hesitated and glanced at Nepthys, but she shook her head. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve got enough to get me through a single fight. Besides, I can go through some of the Wyrdgeld if I get desperate.”

  Jake nodded, but they both knew that eating Wyrdgeld was truly a desperate move. The coins were made of pure Wyrd, but they held far more worth as currency than as magical restoratives.

  “Alright then, let’s take a few minutes to catch our breath and then head in,” Jake said, ignoring the look that Nepthys gave him. She needed some time to rest, and he’d make sure she got it.

  Nepthys was a proud classer, and he knew she hated the idea of them waiting for her, but that was her pride speaking. Realistically, they could afford the short wait, even if a longer one would be a problem.

  From her she didn’t protest beyond the initial glare, she knew all that just as well as he did.

  Sipping his water, Jake wiped away the sweat dripping down his face and wondered why he’d been excited to come back to this Dungeon. The heat was relentless, making the whole thing borderline unbearable.

  Part of him was tempted to tell the Dungeon that, to ask it to tone it down. He wouldn’t, though. This was too good of an environment to practice delving in adverse conditions.

  Maybe that was Jake’s Delver’s Will Ability talking, but it was true. This was pushing them in a way that other Dungeons hadn’t, and he valued that.

  “Alright,” Jake said, taking a last sip of water before stowing his canteen. “Let’s get this Challenge done.”

  The others rose, standing ready as he opened the door to the Challenge and stepped through.

  The interior was a simple rock chamber illuminated by burning rocks. A line of doors stood opposite them, each recessed from the main room and bearing an indentation for a hand where a handle would be.

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  Carvings in the doors suggested the obvious path for how to proceed, so they split up and took a door each, pressing their hands into the empty spaces.

  A moment after Jake had extended his hand, the door before him, lifted up, sliding seamlessly into the ceiling even as a wall sank down to his rear, sealing him off.

  Jake gripped his sword tight as he caught sight of the small room beyond the door. It was a replica of the caves from the first tier, where the Drakes had been sunning themselves atop stone or obsidian spikes.

  This particular chamber had a weathered and charred slab of stone, with a large Lesser Drake atop it and a trio of the Fire Lizards at its base.

  The drake reminded Jake of the big one from the first tier’s Guardian floor. That had been a peak Enhanced monster, meaning it was worth ten Wyrdgeld rather than five.

  Eyeing the situation, Jake decided that such a difference didn’t matter and started forward into the chamber.

  For all that the drake was as powerful as an Enhanced monster could be, Jake was at the peak of the second tier, and had a slew of powerful abilities.

  Deciding that the time had come to start using then, Jake expended a second Manifestation to conjure Dauhaust’s Root and immediately infused it with his Wyrd.

  An impact weave that Jake had learned rapidly took shape within the spear as Jake kicked off into a sprint. Racing at the drake, Jake hefted the spear and threw it at his target.

  The spear flew true, driving deep into the side of the drake and knocking it clean off of the rock. Jake’s Infusion Skill let the weave he’d created persist for a few vital moments after the spear left his grip, enough for the infusion to trigger and gave the strike enough strength to break the drake’s ribs.

  Redrawing his sword and wand, Jake dispatched the three Beast strength monsters in mere seconds, taking full advantage of his speed and strength.

  As soon as the last lizard was cut down, Jake rounded the boulder and fell on the wounded drake before it could recover, finishing the job.

  All in all, it had taken him thirty seconds from entering the chamber, and he’d used only a single infusion of Wyrd and a small portion of a Manifestation.

  Drawing out the Wyrdgeld from the monsters, Jake found the way back was open and he stepped back through at the same time as Aspen and Nepthys.

  Gargan joined them a moment later, with Alan a few seconds afterwards.

  “Stupid lizard kept dodging and hiding,” Alan muttered as he saw he was the last one out of their fights.

  Jake smothered a grin and shared an amused look with Aspen before heading over to a chest that had appeared next to the exit.

  Cracking it open, Jake found a pouch of Wyrdgeld, a bundle of obsidian tipped arrows and a wooden container that Aspen snatched away.

  “What’s that?” Jake asked, tossing the arrows to Alan and stowing away the pouch.

  “Liquid gold,” Aspen said, opening the wooden container with a look of awe. Turning it, he showed Jake that it had a shaped interior that was filled with a dozen eggs.

  Jake rolled his eyes and shook his head, leaving Aspen to fawn over the find as he left the Challenge.

  Truthfully, Jake was already looking forward to one of those eggs with some bacon, but Aspen took that excitement to a whole new level.

  Regrouping outside the Challenge, they took another minute to drink up and check over their gear before moving forward to the true fight.

  -**-

  The Guardian Floor of the second tier was a cavernous, rocky chamber illuminated by the dull glow of lava and the flickering light of eternally burning rocks.

  Directly before them lay a small lake of lava, with a wide rocky bridge stretching across it, mere feet above the surface. Ripples and currents within the lava left no doubt that Fire Serpents were present, but they were hidden for the moment.

  Beyond the lake stood a half-dozen great spires of rock that stretched high toward the distant ceiling, their tips wreathed in flames.

  A path ran between the spires, but it was filled with countless shards of glinting obsidian that were partially buried in the ground, their tips jutting out like blackened teeth.

  Lifting his gaze, Jake looked past the spires and the obsidian field to a giant boulder that had been shaped by countless years of its master reclining upon it.

  The Drake was a darker red than its Enhanced or Beast cousins, and was much larger, stretching to almost thirty feet in total. A good ten of that was its thick, ridged tail, but the rest of it was big enough that it didn’t matter.

  The Drake’s head rested on an outcropping of the boulder, smoke curling from its nostrils as it slumbered. While Lesser Drakes could spit flames, Jake had a feeling that this creature would do far more than that.

  “Now that’s a big lizard,” Aspen said, letting out a low whistle. “He’s going to be a right pain to kill, that’s for sure.”

  “Where are the rest of the monsters?” Gargan asked, frowning as he looked over the chamber. “There surely aren’t enough Fire Serpents in the lake to account for the rest.”

  “They’re among the obsidian shards,” Alan said softly. “You can see the odd one move. All Lesser Fire Drakes as best I can tell. They’re covered in a layer of ash, but I think I see twenty.”

  Jake saw the grey Wyrd flashing in Alan’s eyes and nodded. That felt about right for what they’d seen before if they counted a handful of snakes in the lava.

  “So, how do we do this?” Nepthys asked, nodding to the distant slumbering Drake. “That thing is going to be tough to hurt.”

  “Well, I have a plan,” Jake said, grinning as the others shared wary looks.